From Anxiety to Ecstasy: Themes in German Expressionist Prints

2006

Flourishing from around 1905 to 1933, German Expressionism is a movement that largely explored the emotional and psychological toll of living in the modern world. For many German Expressionist artists, contemporary society was mired in a social and spiritual disconnect resulting from the Industrial Revolution. This sense of alienation was at once a human isolationism as well as a separation from the earth and man's free, natural state. Expressionists viewed as corrupt, artificial, and in need of change the rampant materialism and stifling social patterns of the bourgeoisie, the German metropolis, and the decadent upper class that dominated it.

This exhibition, which draws largely from the Museum's outstanding collection of German Expressionist prints, is organized around five critical themes that reflect both the negative underside of modern life as well as the positive paradigms of change: Nudes, Performers, Exotic influences and the Other, Social criticism, and Portraits.

The first exhibition to showcase the Museum's holdings of German graphic art from this period in more than ten years, highlights include works by Käthe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, Ernst Kirchner, Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller, and many others.

Curated by Marnie Stark